Friday, November 24, 2006

266. West - Louis Simpson

TamalpaisThe red princess slopesIn honeyed burial from hair to feet;The sharp lifting fogUncurtains Richmond and the ridge––With two red rubies set upon the bridge––And curtains them again.

Ranching in Bolinas, that's the life,If you call cattle life.To sit on a veranda with a glassAnd see the sprinklers watering your landAnd hear the peaches dropping from the treesAnd hear the ocean in the redwood trees,

The whales of time,Masts of the long voyages of earth,In whose tall branches dayHangs like a Christmas toy.

On their red columns drowseThe eagles battered at the Western gate;These trees have held the eagles in their stateWhen Rome was still a rumor in the boughs.